Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2007 February 19

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[edit] 2007-02-19

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  • Mathew_Brady (history · last edit) from [2]. Last two paragraphs of Wikipedia article are almost identical to the last paragraph of the article on the Spartacus Educational website. I don't know which borrows from which. Gandalf StormCrow 16:20, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The Road Not Taken (Stargate SG-1) (history · last edit) from the episode itself (over-long plot summary, non-verbatim). Trivia points taken from IMDb. I tried adding {{plot}} but it keeps being reverted by one editor. GunnarRene 21:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
    With a ceiling of about 3200 words of dialogue per 45 minute episode, the plot summary is probably more than 70% as long as the dialogue. (There is more than dialogue in an episode, of course, but it is the essence of the work and I just thought some numbers might be useful. ) --GunnarRene 18:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Note that the editor who tagged the article has been told several times they are not copyright infringements. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 22:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
      • IMDb information is user submitted so its possible the trivia from IMDb was taken from Wikipedia. and the article is not overly long since it has its own page, which can fully go into detail. -Xornok 01:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
      • i just checked (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887239/) and there isnt even a trivia section to begin with. -Xornok 01:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
      • IMDB was cited as the source for the trivial point of the episode being the 200th appearance of Amanda Tapping Mwhope 06:21, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
        • The main concern here is the plot "summary" which is very long, violating WP:NOT and fair use in my view.--GunnarRene 07:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
          • From copyright: "Copyright law covers only the particular form or manner in which ideas or information have been manifested, the "form of material expression". It is not designed or intended to cover the actual idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques which may be embodied in or represented by the copyright work." The exact wording, sound, and visuals in the media are copyrightable, but information abou the episode is not. Unless there is an excess of quotes or pictures, which there isn't, it is an original work. (That is, unless you can prove someone copied the plot summary from a website somewhere.) It might violate other policies, like WP:V, but not that one. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 11:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
            • Are you saying that the article is fine as long as we remove the screenshot? I.e. that we can paraphrase the entire plot as long as there are no quotes or screenshots that we might be sued over? There is a big difference between relating facts about who played particular roles in the episode and re-telling the entire plot of the episode. The plot of the episode is not "[an] idea, concepts, facts, styles, or techniques". It is true that they can't copyright a simple idea expressed in the plot, but since the episode itself is copyrighted as a work, that includes the plot. So if we make a replacement for the episode incorporating such a long plot summary, we have a very weak rationale for including fair use pictures, quotes or even the names of the characters. --GunnarRene 17:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) says: Another reason to avoid both in-universe perspective and lengthy, detailed plot synopses is that, in sufficient quantity, they may be construed as a copyright violation. Information about fictional worlds and plots of works of fiction can be provided only under a claim of fair use, and Wikipedia's fair-use policy holds that "the amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible." A lengthy, detailed plot summary, particularly one that is so detailed that it can substitute for watching the episode, and one without other context and info, seems to be a potential fair use violation. In this case it certainly seems in need of a rewrite, and if editors refuse to do that, it has to be seriously looked at as a potential copyright violation. --Milo H Minderbinder 18:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
The plot does seem rather long and sadly devoid of critical commentary, and if properly cited would probably turn out to have original research anyways, but to me it seems rather dry to be a replacement for the actual media, but perhaps others would disagree. Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 19:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
There are two appellate law cases (one involving Seinfeld, one involving Twin Peaks) that make it pretty clear that long plot summaries are copyright violations, unless permitted under fair use or some other exception. Both of those cases involved for-profit enterprises, so Wikipedia has a stronger fair use claim than the defendants to date have, and there's no hard and fast rule about what plot summary/other information ratio is permissible. However, there *is* a copyright issue to be considered. TheronJ 18:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Valid points. But please note that while we have fair use tags for images (and for the time being non-commercial and by-permission), there are no such tags for our text. That means that all text has to be allowable under the GDFL, and whatever fair use exists in it has to be defensible if re-used by a commercial entity like IBM, Microsoft or even rival and competing TV companies. --GunnarRene 19:06, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:FICT arguments are editorial disputes, why is this even here? The common sense guideline on plot summary, both as regards our policies for writing on fictional subjects and probably as regards fair use law, is that we can include enough plot summary to make the story under discussion in the article comphrensible. If the work has an incredibly detailed/hard to understand plot or is a multi-volume book series, then we can include a lot of plot summary. If it's a single television episode, not so much. I'm really wondering why you two are duking it out here rather than trying to find a fitting compromise on the amount of detail for this episode's plot summary by working on the article itself. It would certainly take less time. --tjstrf talk 21:01, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

So are you disputing WP:WAF and saying we can get as long and detailed as we want on plot summaries and there's zero copyright issue? --Milo H Minderbinder 21:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Not at all. The purpose of plot summary on Wikipedia, as given on our policy pages (WP:WAF and WP:FICT both discuss this) is to provide context for the reader and explain the subject. My statement above is in accordance with the guidance given by WP:WAF, practice in ongoing related AfD arguments, and my own looking at how FA and GA quality episode lists deal with this issue. If it wasn't clear, this article definitely needs trimmed because it goes into far more detail than that necessary to understand the episode's plot. --tjstrf talk 21:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Those of you who think this is a copyright issue might want to bring it up on Wikipedia talk:Fair use, since Wikipedia:Fair use does not seem to say anything about this. And if it isn't a copyright issue, I don't think anyone is denying that the article does have less serious policy and guideline violations, but I think tjstrf is right that this is not the right place to discuss those. — Armedblowfish (talk|mail) 22:48, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at the article and I have to agree. I count this as a "plot description" and not a "plot summary/synopsis". This is a POTENTIAL fair use violation. The fact that most of this can be written in a fashion that would explain the plot and be understandable without describing the entire episode in my eyes makes this an "avoidable" potential violation and as such the violation SHOULD be avoided in wikipedia. A good episode article should look something like this: Homerpalooza or Cape Feare if you ask me. However, i'm not for a full deletion of the article. Weed out the plot section and let it be. Because it simply takes a lot of time before editors get it up to standards such as those simpsons articles and you cannot expect to happen if there is no article at all. --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 18:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Talk:The Road Not Taken (Stargate SG-1)/Temp has already been started, so a new article can be written there. --129.241.210.38 23:06, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Cripes guys, all that I'm asking is as long as you guys get a proper article written out without any petty bickering between editors here, that's all that's needed. If you people could argue so much over copyvios, why can't you all just take the time to address each other's concerns and rewrite or rephrase the article's contents so that copyvio is no longer an issue? --Andylkl [ talk! | c ] 20:16, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

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